John McGahern

Eliot Rosewater

Is there any John McGahern "fans" here? (If you like an author are you a "fan"?!)

That They May Face The Rising Sun is one of my favorite novels. I've also read The Leavetaking. I love the way he captures Ireland and its culture. I find it hard to describe now that I type. I only wonder, is my appreciation partly derived from the fact I am Irish, thus making his work less powerful for people not from here?

Recently I started reading Creatures of the Earth, a short stories collection. My brain is fazzled at the moment as I'm doing exams, so I'm not exploring the deeper meanings; only soaking up the writing style.

Through the windows the fields of stone walls, blue roofs of Carrick, Shannon river. Sing for them once First Communion Day O River Shannon flowing and a four-leaved shamrock growing, silver medal on the blue suit and white ankle socks in new shoes. The farther flows the river the muddier the water: the light was brighter on its upper reaches. Rustle of the boat through the bulrushes as we went to Moran’s well for spring water in dry summers, cool of watercress and bitterness of the wild cherries shaken out of the whitethorn hedge, black bullrush seed floating in the gallons on the floorboards, all the vivid sections of the wheel we watched so slowly turn, impatient for the rich whole that never came but that all the preparations promised.

From Wheels, the first story in the collection.

Kinski

Read The Dark when I was at school, quite a while ago but I remember it pretty well (I think!) It's an interesting one - he plays a lot of formal games with narrative viewpoint in it; while its frank treatment of sexuality and particularly the issue of sexual abuse is also notable. Irish people often seem to think of the abuse thing as something that only came to light relatively recently, but here you've got a novel from the 1960s that deals with the idea of someone presenting a 'pious' face to society while being an abuser in private. Definitely worth a read anyway.

Eliot Rosewater

I have a friend whose brother did a Masters on John McGahern; the brother told my friend not to read The Dark because it would "**** with his mind"!

The sexual abuse aspect of it sounds interesting, given that it was written so long ago.

Kinski

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I have a friend whose brother did a Masters on John McGahern; the brother told my friend not to read The Dark because it would "**** with his mind"!

If someone told me that about a book, I'd immediately go and read it!

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

The sexual abuse aspect of it sounds interesting, given that it was written so long ago.

I should say that that aspect is not as central to the novel as it is in, say, Lolita, but it's certainly in there.

OldBloke

Try the Barracks next if you liked That they may face the Rising Sun.

tawfeeredux

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

I only wonder, is my appreciation partly derived from the fact I am Irish, thus making his work less powerful for people not from here?

I've wondered about this myself.


Because I'm from the same neck of the woods as McGahern & because I recognised traits of some of my older neighbours in a lot of the characters, I thought that it might not have the same impact on readers not from the area or from this country.


But when I think about what impresses me most about his work, it's that he captures perfectly the essence of what it's like to live in a certain place at a certain time, and that anyone could pick it up & experience (not just read about) that for themselves.

tawfeeredux

OldBloke wrote: »

Try the Barracks next if you liked That they may face the Rising Sun.

Of McGahern's novels that I've read, I was least impressed with The Barracks. He wrote it when he was in his twenties and I get a sense of youthful bitterness in it that I don't get with his later works, particularly Amongst Women & That They May face The Rising Sun.

Waffle

That they may face the rising sun is a fantastic, beautiful book.

I only wonder, is my appreciation partly derived from the fact I am Irish

For me it certainly is.
Does it make him less of a writer? I don't think so. His ability to create a scene, down to the sounds and smell of a living room is what makes him so great.

I find that many of the scenes he creates evoke a kind of memory in my mind and that defo enhances the enjoyment of the book. So probably wouldn't appreciate his books in quite the same way if I wasn't Irish.

not bakunin

I'm a big McGahern enthusiast, and I think it has little to do with harbouring a sense of Irishness, because I am far from nationalistic. He has a simple way of bringing a brilliant sense of life to the most simple of things. I remember reading That They May Face The Rising Sun for the first time, and every time he let rip with one of those lovely descriptive passages, I couldn't help but spend ages looking out the window down over the fields behind my house and 'reflecting' on them. Not many authors can do that to a reader. His short stories are very good as well, I particularly enjoyed Creatures of the Earth and Getting Through.

Latchy

I got a copy of the Dark last year .

A very depressing / great read of small town rural life dominated by ,religious fervor and oppression , with some dark but intresting Characters. Makes one glad not to have being around back then in that culture and climate although the author does allow some sunshine and love amoung the gloom into his memories .

Eliot Rosewater

My problem with having to be Irish to appreciate him is that it limits his appeal. Also, our enjoyment of it is as much a reflection of us as it is McGahern, and that diminishes the author.

I'm assuming by all your replies that you're Irish. The real test would be to get someone who isn't Irish to share their views!

Peter 2502

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Eliot Rosewater

Peter 2502 wrote: »

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His dismissal was the subject of his book The Leavetaking.

nompere

I'm not Irish, though I have lived here for a long time. I too think that "That They May Face the Rising Sun" is a wonderful book.

I've read other McGahern over the last few years, and enjoyed it. "Memoir" was particularly good.

I admit to liking John Banville and Edna O'Brien as well. Good writing is good writing, no matter the nationality of the author.

Cherry.Blossom

I read Amongst Women in college. It was actually very good.

McGahern went to the same school in carrick on shannon as my dad, I found this out after reading the book so that was kind of interesting to know!

onlyrocknroll

I haven't read as much of McGahern as I should have (I'll amend that in due course) but I think that The Dark is a brilliant book. From a time when the country seemed either ignorant or in denial about the darker aspects of Irish life, it was a strangely prescient novel.

Memoir is also a great read.

Quality

I have only read Amongst Women, and I loved his writing style. As mentioned by another poster, you get a real feel from him. I got to picture each scene in my head, from the sounds and smells of them cooking up his dinner, to the hard work put in when they are gathering the hay.

I do love my irish history, love talking to my mam and dad about ireland when they were young and stories from their youth.

I have that they may face the rising sun here, and will give it a read when I finish the current book I am on.

Bill2673

I've read four of his books; Memoir, That they should face the rising sun; Amongst Women; Pornographer. I;ve enjoyed all of them, but I thought Memoir was by far the best of them, and one of the best books I've read. Its beautifully written and his life is like a novel. I thought the last paragraph was one of the most moving things I've ever read, a love poem by a son for his mother who died when he was only 7 or 8 yrs old, 60 years previously.

he is a great writer no doubt, and i am sure non-Irish people would enjoy his stuff. He is however very much in vogue I feel since he was one of the few voices (and probably the most notable voice) to say in the 1950s and 1960s what all of us are saying now about that period, and the church and Irish society. Paddy Kavanagh by comparison, for all his cantankerousness, was a great buddy of the Archbishop of Dublin. McGahern provided a moral compass for this country, and maybe that gives him an extra relevance for Irish readers (or people living here).

I'd be interested to know which of his other books people would recommend most, apart from the ones I've listed above.

Eliot Rosewater

Warning: Plot spoilers for Amongst Women!

I just finished Amongst Women the other day. I liked it quite a bit. I thought that the way he accentuated gender as an identity was really great at showing the way in which different types of personalities dealt with Moran.

As regards an interpretation, I think that the family represents Ireland, with Moran of the old stock, the children of the new, and Rose a bit of a "go-between". In the book Moran literally forces the young men away from the family - and away from Ireland too. Even though he's always emphasising this notion of family (within the metaphor, Irishness) people are different and we have to be accommodating of each other. His failure to do this alienates those who want to chart out their own existence independent of the communal moral code Moran places upon his children.

This kind of ties in with one of the themes of the book: Moran's dissatisfaction with the way Ireland has turned out and, more importantly, the fact that he probably never would have been happy; that he was fighting for an overly idealistic cause (I'm thinking of the 1916 proclamation and its talk of an "august destiny").

I thought the meadow (the green pasture) was kind of symbolic of Ireland. The greatest success was when the family (Irish people) worked together on it, casting aside their differences. But near the end Moran's neighbour, a protestant, slips into the field and configures the plough to work with the greatest success. I think that the protestant's land is symbolic of Northern Ireland, and the moral here is that our lives are best served if we work together, as opposed to living in an air of the hostility, as existed at the time of publication (1990).

I think the ending is wonderful, just after the funeral.

"Will you look at the men. They're more like a crowd of women," Sheila said, remarking on the slow frivolity of their pace. "The way Micheal, the skit, is getting Sean and Mark to laugh you'd think they were coming from a dance."

Now the young men (new Ireland) are free of the constraints of Moran (old Ireland) and have assumed the bright optimistic personalities of the women. I think the message is that the old Irish stock held back their descendants, and that the former's passing was to be greeted with optimism and hope for the future.

Permabear

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Eliot Rosewater

^^ Well put!

It's interesting really that despite his constant criticism of Irish culture McGahern stayed in Ireland and continued to engage with it. Perhaps he had a bit of "top down" view of the system, so that while he was clearly at odds with the priesthood and, in Amongst Women, the nationalist Irish people of old who were in cultural and political control, he still held faith in the average Irish person.

Bill2673

Did he not leave Ireland due to the reaction to The Dark?